It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
During the last 15 years, weapons were the strongest currency in the region. The 14th Army deposits and the production units founded during the time of the Soviet Union provided arms for all military conflicts in the Caucasians, the former Yugoslavia, in some African countries, or in Iraq.
[---]
The Mogilevich grouping and the Odessa grouping of Angert are only two examples of cells working on the Transnistrian territory. To these we can add diverse business connections with Solntsevo. Weapons trader Victor Bout didn’t stay away from this republic either. It is really interesting that in the area there came up as investors, people connecting the United States with Casa Nostra and similar groups from Israel. To all the above one can also add the very interests of some of the most important Russian bankers. At the beginning of the 90’s, the latter founded some financial colossus in the name of the former Communist Party and with the help of the secret service and of the army.
Originally posted by Hellmutt
He threatens with "a string of retaliation measures" against Chisinau, starting 1 July.
Originally posted by Hellmutt
Moldova Azi: Pridnestrovskaya Moldavskaya Respublika – Terra Incognita
We discovered a few important groups that were running business activities in the separatist republic. We shall enumerate them, details to be provided later on. First place should go to the groups represented by Alisher Usmanov, a Russian oligarch; then there are the business men connected to Semion Mogilevich, the head of Russian mafia, or to Gafur Rachimov and Serghei Michailov; then we have the business joint activities of Peter Poroshenko, the former head of the Ukrainian Security Council and defense secretary of President Yushcenko; then we also have the trusts Dynamo, SMART Group and PRIVAT Group, all controlled by Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs: Anatoli Ciubais (former Vice Prime Minister, finance minister and Prime Minister), Michail Kasianov (former Primer Minister) and Victor Cernomirdin (former Prime Minister), but we have also identified two key companies in the European organized crime groups: Gazprom and RAO EES, the Russian energetic giant.
But if Transnistria became the territory of a recognized country, the larger majority of the local political elite would have to leave the region because of the frauds and, in some cases, murders they committed.
July 13, 2007
The total debt of Transdniestria for Russian natural gas is $1.3 billion. Gazprom has turned that debt over to OOO Factoring Finance. Tiraspol has made it clear that it does not intend to pay that debt. “Transdniestria has no legal debt,” Smirnov stated in March. “There was never an agreement signed with Gazprom. AO Moldova-gaz signed an agreement. Fifteen percent of the stock used to belong to Transdniestria, but then Transdniestria gas structures left the Moldovan association. So now let Moldova deal with it.”
That angered Moscow so much that rumors began to circulate in the press that the Kremlin was getting ready to replace Smirnov.
On September 7, 1997, a story broke in which Lebed alleged during an interview with the TV newsmagazine Sixty Minutes that a hundred of Soviet-made suitcase-sized nuclear weapons designed for sabotage "are not under the control of the armed forces of Russia".
Moldova sends more soldiers to Iraq
Nations in Transit 2001: Country Report of Moldova
Nations in Transit 2002: Country Report of Moldova
Moldova Government The World Bank is helping tackle Moldova's public sector challenges
Investment Climate Assessment Moldova Investment Climate Assessment
A synthesis report: Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Nepal and Sri Lanka, generational change in power in Tiraspol.
search source
Originally posted by Ulvetann
This is interesting news.
I have often heard the name Moldova, but never catched anything about it. I knew it was an old sovjetstate, but nothing more.
And it's geographical placement of the country is truly right in the middle of no-mansland...
-no pun intended towards the intelligensia of the nearby countries that read this...
That would be the most perfect terroriststate, wouldn't it? All those weapons, and no interference from their neighbours. Why don't Bush&Putin bomb this place up, they are already so good at it in Afghanistan and Iraq? Because of nukes?
Edited some of those dumb spelling-thingies
[edit on 15-4-2005 by Ulvetann]